To meet the demand for higher integration density and operating speed of LSIs, the effort to reduce the pattern rule is in rapid progress. The wide-spreading flash memory market and the demand for increased storage capacities drive forward the miniaturization technology. As the advanced miniaturization technology, manufacturing of microelectronic devices at the 65-nm node by the ArF lithography has been implemented in a mass scale. Manufacturing of 45-nm node devices by the next generation ArF immersion lithography is approaching to the verge of high-volume application. The candidates for the next generation 32-nm node include ultra-high NA lens immersion lithography using a liquid having a higher refractive index than water in combination with a high refractive index lens and a high refractive index resist film, EUV lithography of wavelength 13.5 nm, and double patterning version of the ArF lithography, on which active research efforts have been made.
With respect to high-energy radiation of very short wavelength such as EB or x-ray, hydrocarbons and similar light elements used in resist materials have little absorption. Then polyhydroxystyrene base resist materials are under consideration.
Resist materials for EB lithography are practically used in the mask image writing application. Recently, the mask manufacturing technology becomes of greater interest. Reduction projection exposure systems or steppers have been used since the time when the exposure light was g-line. While their demagnification factor was ⅕, a factor of ¼ is now used as a result of chip size enlargement and projection lens diameter increase. It becomes of concern that a dimensional error of a mask has an impact on the dimensional variation of a pattern on wafer. It is pointed out that as the pattern feature is reduced, the value of a dimensional variation on the wafer becomes greater than the value of a dimensional error of the mask. This is evaluated by a mask error enhancement factor (MEEF) which is a dimensional variation on wafer divided by a dimensional error of mask. Patterns on the order of 45 nm often show an MEEF in excess of 4. In a situation including a demagnification factor of ¼ and a MEEF of 4, the mask manufacture needs an accuracy substantially equivalent to that for equi-magnification masks.
The exposure system for mask manufacturing made a transition from the laser beam exposure system to the EB exposure system to increase the accuracy of line width. Since a further size reduction becomes possible by increasing the accelerating voltage of the electron gun in the EB exposure system, the accelerating voltage has increased from 10 keV to 30 keV and reached 50 keV in the current mainstream system, with a voltage of 100 keV being under investigation.
Chemically amplified resist compositions comprising an acid generator capable of generating an acid upon exposure to light or EB include chemically amplified positive resist compositions wherein deprotection reaction takes place under the action of acid and chemically amplified negative resist compositions wherein crosslinking reaction takes place under the action of acid. Quenchers are often added to these resist compositions for the purpose of controlling the diffusion of the acid to unexposed areas to improve the contrast. The addition of quenchers is fully effective to this purpose. A number of amine quenchers were proposed as disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 3.
Patent Documents 4 to 6 propose quenchers in the form of a protected amine compound having an amino group substituted with an acid labile group and adapted to generate a basic compound under the action of acid. Since acid generators such as alkyl sulfonium salts, iodonium salts, and imidosulfonates and polymers having a specific lactone or acid anhydride as adhesive group are readily decomposed with a strong base, protected amine compounds are used in such situation.
Acid diffusion may be suppressed by adding an amine quencher having a high molecular weight. A polymer having an amine quencher bound thereto is an amine quencher having the highest molecular weight, but has the problem that a slight change of copolymerization ratio invites a change of sensitivity of a resist material. A resist material to which a cholic acid ester having an amino group is added is successful in suppressing acid diffusion a degree, as described in Patent Document 7. However, since the cholic acid ester having an amino group is a strong base, the type of the acid generator and the base polymer's adhesive group which can be combined therewith is limited. There is a need to have a protected amine compound of giant molecule which is effective for suppressing acid diffusion and imposes few or no limits on the acid generator and base polymer's adhesive group.